


Daydream In Blue

by KhakiAnon



Category: BBC Hustle, Hustle
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, London, Probs OOC because it’s dark, Refrence to alcohol as coping mechanism, friends - Freeform, nightime, very mild suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 15:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16432070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KhakiAnon/pseuds/KhakiAnon
Summary: He didn’t know how to describe it. He just felt... lonely, sometimes. And it really was only sometimes. He was surrounded by a group of amazing people, but Mickey was the thinker. Ash didn’t think. He just made things. Sourced things. That’s what they seemed to believe. He took his usual walk around the Thames. He’d done this for the last week and a half, now.————Good old Ash. Sometimes I feel there’s a little more going on behind those eyes, so I thought I’d start writing.





	Daydream In Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! My first post to AO3, and my first Hustle fanfic! This fandom seems pretty small... so I hope those of us that are here can pull together! I use Ash’s character to explain my own feelings a little here.  
> P.s. I don’t own Hustle or any of the characters etc.  
> Hope you enjoy.

He took long walks at night, sometimes. He was usually alright. Better than alright, really. But every now and then, things just felt... “off”. 

None of the team seemed to realise, but he was actually a rather deep thinker. Sure, his judgement could be clouded sometimes, but usually? Usually he thought more deeply than the others knew. Sometimes, too deeply to sleep. It was easier to drink. To stay up creating a web page for their next con. To become obsessively focussed on the details. 

He could probably plan like Mickey, if he so wished. Emma had seen it in him during the Picasso con. Ash didn’t see it in himself though. Not fully. Besides, he liked his progress to be in a tangible form. Planning cons like Mickey was good, when he was up to it. But when he needed a distraction? He needed something more practical. His mind was too... active. Too full of nonsense to focus on things he couldn’t see in front of him. Hence he was partial to a good scotch, whenever necessary. Or to researching a system of some kind. Complicated, multifaceted systems were always good ways to redirect his thoughts to something useful. It just felt like constant static otherwise. 

When he was like this, he didn’t have particularly negative thoughts. Or positive ones, for that matter. But he felt disconnected, sometimes. It was as though the team just didn’t see how much went on behind closed doors. How much he wanted someone - even just once - just to tell him to stop thinking. To stop over thinking. To get some rest. To tell him that, “yes, checking over it fourteen times has probably guaranteed that you haven’t missed anything. It’s four in the morning, get some sleep.” 

He didn’t know how to describe it. He just felt... lonely, sometimes. And it really was only sometimes. He was surrounded by a group of amazing people, but Mickey was the thinker. Ash didn’t think. He just made things. Sourced things. That’s what they seemed to believe. He took his usual walk around the Thames. He’d done this for the last week and a half, now. The moonlight on the water looked beautiful as ever. He couldn’t help but lean over the barrier a little. Just a little reminder that he didn’t have to continuously think, not if he didn’t want to. 

Mickey had set up a big con. It wasn’t just his general thinking that kept him up; he feared for the team’s safety, too. He took it upon himself to be their protector - make sure they had everything they required, and the like. The cons were a help and a hinderance. Some days, general thinking would keep him up, but at least he’d have a con to plan and keep him company. It came as a relief when he’d have three days to do an inhuman amount of work - finally he’d have a productive way to spend the nights he just couldn’t sleep away. Sometimes he only slept because of the con. He’d have a particularly productive day of planning, researching and sourcing, and would find his thoughts would ease up a little. Then there were the con-induced sleepless nights. The cons that worried him. The ones he could neither sleep on, nor work on, for his mind was too scattered by the “what if” scenarios he’d managed to conjure up. 

The flop is almost poetic when you really look at it. What better way to get back at a troublesome mind than to show just how little you care for it? It wasn’t entirely like that with June, though. It was a game they were both in on back then. He was even more lost, now - having seen just how important it is to keep the mind in tact, yet still drinking to keep his bearable. Still getting an image of throwing himself under a bus, on the off chance of getting a cheque. He couldn’t be ungrateful for what he had, not now he’d seen what could happen. Yet here he was. It was so confusing. 

Mickey was a few metres behind him. Ash was too lost in thought to notice, too mesmerised by the fighting light and shadow that adorned each crest of the river. 

“Can’t sleep?” 

He should have known Mickey would cotton on soon enough, and stalk him to sate his curiosity. 

“...Nah.” Mickey joined him by the barrier. 

“Everything ready for tomorrow?” 

“Yeah.” 

There was a pause. To Mickey, it was time to carefully plot out his next words. To Ash, it was time to appreciate the cool night air and wonder how best he could explain himself without having to talk much. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate Mickey’s watchful eye. He just didn’t know how to explain anything. He wasn’t big on talking. Nothing seemed to make sense when he tried to put it into words. 

“June?” 

Ash sighed. “A bit. Thanks again for doing that for us, eh Mick.” He was still grateful for the money they’d raised for her. 

“You know you’ve no need to thank me. Especially not over five times.” 

Ash huffed a laugh at that, and couldn’t help but give a small smile. Of course Mickey would keep count. 

“You’re worried about the con.” It was a question wrapped as a statement. 

“Nah it— that should all go to plan.”

“So...?” 

“I don’t know, Mick.” He really didn’t. 

Mickey nodded, facing the Thames again. He had days like that. Where he just couldn’t shut down. There was just... static. He usually put the excess brainpower to another con, but Ash was less one-track minded. He could focus on one thing for consecutive all-nighters, sure. But if it wasn’t coming naturally, any excess thinking just got wasted - became static. That was his theory, anyway. 

Mickey spoke next.  
“It’s like static. Hard to focus. Hard to sleep. Just... background noise, getting in the way.”

Ash turned his head slightly in his direction, taken aback by Mickey’s astute interpretation of a quandary he was yet to speak of. Not that he should have expected anything less. 

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

Everyone experiences it. But it can be painfully pronounced in the deep thinkers.  
They turned back to the water. 

“The walks help?”

“I like the cold.”

“Good distraction?”

“Yeah.”

It was easier to sleep when your hands were numb, and your focus went to warming them up rather than trying to identify the cause of the static. 

Mickey left it there for a moment, wondering how best to approach this. When he was in this situation, it was like being in a rut. As though seeing through fog. Not connecting properly to the world around you - too stuck in your head. 

“Come on.” He said abruptly, and began walking. He knew Ash would follow. Sure enough, after a moments confusion and an “Eh?”, Ash matched his stride. He didn’t bother to ask. He knew that if Mickey wanted to say where they were going, he would have by now. They neared the London Eye, and Ash wondered if he’d twigged it correctly. 

“Two tickets, please mate.” Mickey said in his ‘ignore me I’m just a regular guy like you’ voice. Confirming his theory, Ash huffed a laugh again. Trust Mickey and his perfectly-controlled yet seemingly-spontaneous spontaneity. They were the only ones in the carriage, and had he been his regular self he’d have made a sarcastic jibe: ‘Naw, it’s almost romantic’, and they’d both have laughed. 

But he didn’t feel up to it. And he really was grateful for Mickey’s concern. He’d paid the man with real money, too. His own money. As it was, Ash simply smiled a little more than he had the whole evening, and looked out over the view. He wasn’t ever so slightly misty eyed at all, no, it was just a bit... foggy out. 

A metre or so away, Mickey surveyed the scene too. 

“Thanks Mick.” 

Not just for the excursion.  
For breaking his train of thought before it took another night’s sleep from him.  
For explaining his feelings so he didn’t have to.  
For being there, even when he avoided them.  
For giving him this opportunity, this family. 

“I appreciate it.”

“I know.” 

It may have been the early hours of the morning when they got in, but at least he slept soundly. Somehow, the warm feeling of belonging helped counteract the static.  
It was all worth it. Besides, imagine having this brain, and then having to have a normal job: It’d be hundreds of times worse. No, he had a good thing going here. A family - Eddie included - and a life of exciting new challenges and adventures. Sleep or no sleep, it was all worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I’d love to hear what you thought!  
> “Daydream in Blue” is the title of one of I Monster’s songs. It was featured in Hustle S01E03! I recommend checking it out. 
> 
> And if you’re feeling similar to Ash in this, just know that if I knew you, we’d be on our way to the London Eye right now :)


End file.
